MacBAIN: Nothing complex about Fort Calgary's Mounties — they brought safety

The “Indigenous Peoples” who Parks Canada says it consulted before changing the name of Fort Calgary National Historic Site clearly don’t know the history of their own people.According to the Parks Canada website: “Fort Calgary was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1925 because: it was the site of the arrival, in August, 1875, of ‘F’ troop of the North-West Mounted Police, and the establishment of their post, within the limits of the present day city of Calgary.”In his piece on the renaming of Fort Calgary, David Marsden quotes Jennifer Thompson, the president of the national historic site, as saying: “The stories of this land are complex. That’s why we engaged Indigenous Peoples, Calgarians, partners, the RCMP, and other key audiences to gather knowledge and perspective.“We heard that telling a broader cross-section of history about The Confluence [the new name of Fort Calgary] and advancing Truth and Reconciliation was important. The Confluence is about the coming together of separate entities, identities and histories,” she added.Let’s take a closer look.The recently-established NWMP drove American whiskey traders who had ravaged the lives of indigenous people, back to the American side of the border.In addition to stamping out the ruinous trade in firewater and providing protection for the settlers and the indigenous people, the NWMP served as a deterrent to any plans on the part of the Americans to annex the sparsely-populated area which had only recently come under Canadian control.Here’s how Father Constantine Scollen, who had ministered to the indigenous people of southern Alberta since 1861, described the arrival of the NWMP in a letter he wrote in September, 1876:“But this was the year of their [Blackfoot] salvation. That very summer the [North-West] Mounted Police were struggling against the difficulties of a long journey across the barren plains in order to bring them help.“This noble corps reached their destination that same fall, and with magic effect put an entire stop to the abominable traffic of whiskey with the Indians. Since that time the Blackfeet Indians are becoming more and more prosperous. They are now well clothed and well furnished with horses and guns. During the last two years I have calculated they have bought two thousand horses to replace those they had given away for whiskey. They are forced to acknowledge that the arrival of the Red Coats has been to them a great boon.” In his report about the negotiations leading up to the signing of the Blackfeet Treaty in September, 1877, Lieutenant-Governor David Laird said: “The leading Chiefs of the Blackfeet and kindred tribes, declared publicly at the treaty that, had it not been for the Mounted Police they would all have been dead ere this time.”You’d think that was something the Indigenous people who were consulted about renaming Fort Calgary National Historic Site would have found worth celebrating.During the negotiations, Button Chief said: “The Great Mother [Queen Victoria] sent Stamixotokon [Colonel James Farquharson Macleod] and the police put an end to the traffic in firewater. I can now sleep safely. Before the arrival of the police, when I laid my head down at night, every sound frightened me. My sleep was broken. Now I can sleep sound and I am not afraid. The Great Mother sent you to this country, and we hope she will be good to us for many years.”Chief Crowfoot — after whom a major thoroughfare in Calgary is named — said: “If the police had not come to the country, where would be all now? Bad men and whiskey were killing us so fast that very few, indeed, of us would have been left today. The Police have protected us as the feathers of the bird protect it from the frosts of winter. I wish them all good, and trust that all our hearts will increase in goodness from this time forward. I am satisfied. I will sign the treaty.”Again, that is something I should have thought that indigenous people would consider to be worth celebrating — not erasing.During the negotiations at Fort Pitt, Saskatchewan, on September 13, 1876, Lieutenant-Governor Alexander Morris — who negotiated four of the seven treaties entered into between 1871 and 1877 with the bands living on the former Hudson’s Bay Company lands lying between Thunder Bay and the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains — said: “Look at the condition of the Blackfeet. Before the redcoats went, the Americans were taking their furs and [buffalo] robes and giving them whiskey. We stopped it. They have been able to buy back two thousand horses. Before that, robes would have gone to the Americans for whiskey.”Worth celebrating? I’d say yes.In his 1877 annual report, Interior Minister David Mills said: “I may here remark, that another great benefit has resulted from the judicious steps taken by the Canadian government, and that is the cessation of warfare between the various tribes, which was before of constant occurrence.”And, in writing about that period, Lieut.-Gov. Morris said: “An intelligent Ojibbeway Indian trader told me, that the change was wonderful. ‘Before,’ he said, ‘the Queen’s government came, we were never safe, and now,’ he said, ‘I can sleep in my tent anywhere, and have no fear. I can go to the Blackfeet, and Cree camps, and they treat me as a friend.’”Here’s how Lieut.-Gov. David Laird described his long journey in the summer of 1877 from Government House at Battleford, Saskatchewan, to Fort Macleod in order to negotiate a treaty with the Blackfoot and other tribes.“The Crees [on the journey through Treaty No. 6 territory] appeared friendly, but were not so demonstrative as the Blackfeet who always rode up at once with a smile on their countenances and shook hands with us. They knew the uniform of the Mounted Police at a distance and at once recognized and approached them as friends.”What’s so “complex”, to use Ms. Thompson’s words, about acknowledging that Fort Calgary — like Fort Vancouver, Fort Edmonton, Lower Fort Garry, Fort York, Fort George, Fort Henry and others — played a key role in shaping Canadian history?And what on earth are people supposed to take from the new name: “Confluence Historic Site”?If history ain’t broke, don’t fix it.(The information for this piece came from Toronto author Robert MacBain’s 2017 Their Home and Native Land. His website is: www.RobertMacBainBooks.ca)

MacBAIN: Nothing complex about Fort Calgary's Mounties — they brought safety

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